Red Dress
by Miaka
Summary: Hans waits for Anna to get ready for their date to the company holiday party. No tricks this time. Modern AU/one-shot set two months after my other story, "The Witching Hour".


Dating Anna was an experience, to say the least. Hans had never met another person so full of life. She was fireworks personified, and sometimes he found himself wondering if she was even human—in the best way.

A crash from the other side of her closed door made him start. "Anna?!" He reached for the handle and then thought better of it.

"It's, arghhh, aha, nothing!" her voice rang out through the door. "I'll be out in a sec!"

Hans turned back to her living room, busying himself with the things that made the place Anna's 'home'. Her blinds were closed but he imagined the room being quite bright during the day. The walls were icy blue and most of the decorations were silver home accents. There was one magnolia leaf wreath set between the two windows. The warmth and color of it reminded him of Anna.

He checked his watch, his eyebrows shooting way up his forehead when he saw he'd already been there for twenty minutes. They had just over an hour to get to Diz Corp's holiday party.

"All right, sweetheart. It's… no rush!"

Those were literally the words he used when they first started up dating again seven weeks ago.

It had taken a lot for him to approach Anna after the Halloween party. Elsa had read him the riot act for flirtations with other women from the sales floor. Then he'd begun to question whether those interactions really were out of line for someone who'd been seeing the same girl for a month straight. They had never determined they were in any formal relationship, and Anna was always mentioning that Christopher guy.

He enjoyed her so much, though. So, he'd taken the chance to explain himself. Much to his delight, Anna was thrilled to give an official relationship with him a shot. Two months later, they knew each other all the better.

Elsa still seemed to distrust him. And Kristoff-not-Christopher—who turned out to be, in Anna's words, her 'very very platonic' friend—had still not warmed up to him either. But that didn't particularly discourage Hans. They'd take things slowly.

"I heard Accounting's just going to show up in ugly sweaters." He raised his voice so she could hear him as he drifted throughout the living room, leaning in to observe framed photographs sitting on a bookshelf.

"Whaaaaat?!" Anna sniggered. "I thought Merida was kidding! The holiday party's supposed to be pretty fancy!"

That was true. He turned into a little hallway that connected the living room to the kitchen, where a large mirror hung on the wall. There was admittedly a little bit of vanity in the way his green eyes flitted over his attire; the burgundy dinner jacket over his white shirt, black bow-tie and charcoal dress pants were all tailored to fit him perfectly.

He was grateful that Anna's sister wasn't present. Otherwise, he might have had to hear about how he dressed for attention. Yes, he took good care of himself and women tended to notice.

But lately? He just wanted to look good for Anna, and only Anna.

"You're pretty fancy!" he quipped, having adopted her habit of turning out of context statements into compliments. She only responded with her signature dorky giggle, which was one of the first things he'd noticed about her at work.

His stomach growled, and he was glad Anna wasn't in the room to hear it. He'd only had a light breakfast that morning with the evening ahead in mind.

It was just as he looked at his watch again that he heard her open her door. As he looked up, his breath caught.

"Ah… is red not my color?"

Anna stood there with her hair in one of the elegant fishtail updo styles she liked so much. She looked down toward the ruffle hem of her vibrant dress's tulip skirt. Double straps ran over her pretty shoulders, which Hans had to tear his eyes off of before it became obvious that he was staring. One side of the skirt was open slightly to reveal her left knee, a detail which had Hans swallowing all too audibly in the pause he took to look her over. The girl of his dreams.

Finally, he regained some composure and managed a classically smooth response.

"Every color is your color, sweetheart."

The blush that crept over her face matched the hue of her dress. He could not resist stepping in to brush his lips to one of those cheeks. She scoffed, he knew, to mask her embarrassment as she brought her hands up to his chest and beamed up at him.

How on earth had he let this one get away even for a short while?

"Are you ready?" he asked, delicately taking one of her hands up so that he could kiss the back of it.

As Anna bit her lip, Hans knew it would be excruciating for him to stay on his best behavior throughout the party.

"I was born ready!" she winked.

He had no doubt.

"Oh, wait!" She darted back into her room and returned with a white shawl. Hans watched with some disappointment as his date draped the shawl over her shoulders.

"Cute," he said, clearing his throat as he offered her one arm. She grinned as she took his arm and led the way.

"Thanks! Elsa made it."

"So, uh… speaking of Elsa…"

As they left the apartment, they drifted into an animated conversation about whether or not Elsa still despised him. Hans's stance was that Elsa would never _ever_ approve of him. Anna, ever the optimist, thought otherwise.

They giggled and bumped sides as they got into the elevator. By the time they made it to their taxi, Hans found himself wishing they didn't have to go to the party. He'd have loved just to stay in and talk with Anna all night.

"And by the way," he said later, as their driver stopped in front of a large building made up of mostly windows. Meadows Convention Center was the venue this year. Hans thought it looked much more welcoming than the Venger Estate had on Halloween. Colorful lights flashed from within, and Hans could see a towering ornamented tree with a glittering star at its very top. He held Anna's hand to help her out of the vehicle, once again offering his arm.

He leaned down just a little to whisper in her ear, a smug grin on his face.

"You look stunning in that red dress."

* * *

**A/N:** I've been sick and haven't had time to finish chapter 12 of WTHI. But I wrote this. Set in the same universe as "The Witching Hour" (2 months later) for those who expressed they wished Anna and Hans had worked things out between them. ;3

Completely inspired by the MAGIC! song "Red Dress"


End file.
